The SciFi Film Festival Returns to Sydney for 2018!

By Travis Johnson

September 5, 2018

Get a concentrated dose of the future injected straight into your optic nerves.

The program for the 2018 SciFi Film Festival has dropped in from orbit! Australia’s leading showcase of indie speculative film returns to Event Cinemas George St from October 18 – 21, bringing with it a whole range of diverse, provocative, and fiercely intelligent takes on what the future might bring – 25 films from 11 countries, including two world premieres, 17 Australian premieres and four New South Wales premieres.

Opening Night sees the Australian premiere of Johann Lurf’s ★, a towering cinematic achievement that tracks how the night sky has been portrayed on screen in 100 years of cinema. Austrian ‘constructuralist’ Lurf has compiled starscapes from over 550 films, from the silent era to 2018, resulting in a captivating work of the imagination: a montage that celebrates humanity’s drive to explore the galaxy and how filmmakers have encapsulated that experience for us all.

Closing night sees the return of Steve de Jarnatt’s Miracle Mile to Sydney’s big screen for the first time in 30 years. Starring Anthony Edwards and Mare Winningham and featuring a soundtrack by Tangerine Dream, the 1989 film is a captivating study of nuclear paranoia that sees a young man’s plans for a romantic evening turn when he accidentally picks up a ringing payphone and discovers that the missiles are in the air…

Other highlights this year include:

My Saga, director Adam Harris’ heart-warming ‘Star Wars’-themed documentary, which is followed by a Q&A session with his friend and co-host of SBS’s The Feed, Marc Fennell.

Reflections in the Dust, a confronting drama coming direct from its World Premiere at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, followed by a post-screening panel with writer and director Luke Sullivan and moderated by Fiona Williams, host of the hit podcast Eyes on Gilead and managing editor of SBS Movies.

UFO, a new thriller from director Ryan Eslinger that sees The X-Files‘ Gillian Anderson return to the alien conspiracy subgenre. Alex Sharp stars as a brilliant college student, haunted by a childhood close encounter, who believes that mysterious sightings at multiple airports across the United States are indicators of intergalactic visitation.

Canaries, a kooky Welsh crowd-pleaser from writer/director Peter Stray that sees a wannabe-DJ and his mates just looking to party on New Years take on an invasion of creepy time-travelling aliens in a loving homage to The Thing, Invasion of The Body Snatchers and Night of The Living Dead.

In addition to the features, 16 films will be screening as part of the short film program, including Alex Fung’s animated Eko; steampunk animatronic Manivelle: The Last Days of the Man of Tomorrow; Bobby Bala’s deep space drama The Shipment; and more, all followed by a Q&A with attending directors hosted by film critic Travis Johnson.